THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT
This vision is dated as having occurred in the third year of Belshazzar; but it is not easy to see the significance of the date, since it is almost exclusively occupied with the establishment of the Greek Empire, its dissolution into the kingdoms of the Diadochi, and the godless despotism of King Antiochus Epiphanes.
The seer imagines himself to be in the palace of Shushan: "As I beheld I was in the castle of Shushan."[537] It has been supposed by some that Daniel was really there upon some business connected with the kingdom of Babylon. But this view creates a needless difficulty. Shushan, which the Greeks called Susa, and the Persians Shush (now Shushter), "the city of the lily," was "the palace" or fortress (bîrah[538]) of the Achæmenid kings of Persia, and it is most unlikely that a chief officer of the kingdom of Babylon should have been there in the third year of the imaginary King Belshazzar, just when Cyrus was on the eve of capturing Babylon without a blow. If Belshazzar is some dim reflection of the son of Nabunaid (though he never reigned), Shushan was not then subject to the King of Babylonia. But the ideal presence of the prophet there, in vision, is analogous to the presence of the exile Ezekiel in Jerusalem (Ezek. xl. 1); and these transferences of the prophets to the scenes of their operation were sometimes even regarded as bodily, as in the legend of Habakkuk taken to the lions' den to support Daniel.
Shushan is described as being in the province of Elam or Elymais, which may be here used as a general designation of the district in which Susiana was included. The prophet imagines himself as standing by the river-basin (oobâl[539]) of the Ulai, which shows that we must take the words "in the castle of Shushan" in an ideal sense; for, as Ewald says, "it is only in a dream that images and places are changed so rapidly." The Ulai is the river called by the Greeks the Eulæus, now the Karûn.[540]
Shushan is said by Pliny and Arrian to have been on the river Eulæus, and by Herodotus to have been on the banks of
"Choaspes, amber stream,
The drink of none but kings."
It seems now to have been proved that the Ulai was merely a branch of the Choaspes or Kerkhah.[541]
Lifting up his eyes, Daniel sees a ram standing eastward of the river-basin. It has two lofty horns, the loftier of the two being the later in origin. It butts westward, northward, and southward, and does great things.[542] But in the midst of its successes a he-goat, with a conspicuous horn between its eyes,[543] comes from the West so swiftly over the face of all the earth that it scarcely seems even to touch the ground,[544] and runs upon the ram in the fury of his strength,[545] conquering and trampling upon him, and smashing in pieces his two horns. But his impetuosity was short-lived, for the great horn was speedily broken, and four others[546] rose in its place towards the four winds of heaven. Out of these four horns shot up a puny horn,[547] which grew exceedingly great towards the South, and towards the East, and towards "the Glory"—i.e., towards the Holy Land.[548] It became great even to the host of heaven, and cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and trampled on them.[549] He even behaved proudly against the prince of the host, took away from him[550] "the daily" (sacrifice), polluted the dismantled sanctuary with sacrilegious arms,[551] and cast the truth to the ground and prospered. Then "one holy one called to another and asked, For how long is the vision of the daily [sacrifice], and the horrible sacrilege, that thus both the sanctuary and host are surrendered to be trampled underfoot?"[552] And the answer is, "Until two thousand three hundred 'erebh-bôqer, 'evening-morning'; then will the sanctuary be justified."
Daniel sought to understand the vision, and immediately there stood before him one in the semblance of a man, and he hears the distant voice of some one[553] standing between the Ulai—i.e., between its two banks,[554] or perhaps between its two branches, the Eulæus and the Choaspes—who called aloud to "Gabriel." The archangel Gabriel is here first mentioned in Scripture.[555] "Gabriel," cried the voice, "explain to him what he has seen." So Gabriel came and stood beside him; but he was terrified, and fell on his face. "Observe, thou son of man,"[556] said the angel to him; "for unto the time of the end is the vision." But since Daniel still lay prostrate on his face, and sank into a swoon, the angel touched him, and raised him up, and said that the great wrath was only for a fixed time, and he would tell him what would happen at the end of it.